Outlet
by JustClem
Summary: It's maddening, knowing that you're far from normal and you need help, and unable to do anything because you'll always be your father's good little girl.


**This won't make much sense if you've never seen nor read "Sharp Objects". **

**Enjoy!**

* * *

You don't know when you've crossed the line between normal and not. If you were to ask Yang, you can imagine her saying something along the lines of you two never being normal in the first place. You suppose it's true, but it doesn't wipe away how much you wish for her to say it.

She's edgy in a quiet sort of way. You like that about her. You like her too much.

She's reading a book in the living room, and you're figuring out a way to get her attention.

Gaining someone's attention has similarities to taking their lives away, you've come to realise.

Perhaps that's a morbid thought, but it doesn't make it any less true. The only reason people haven't made the comparisons before is because they revolt the idea of murder, or if they don't, then they're too much of a coward to state it aloud.

But then again, you're no better than they are, are you?

You're a coward too.

"Are you going to keep on standing there for the next forty minutes?"

You blink, and look at Yang, who's looking at you with those slitted doe eyes of hers, displaying more intelligence than any other girl you've met, so much so that you find yourself holding your breath and wondering if she knows when you're in her presence.

"No," you sputter, caught off-guard. Usually, you need to work hard to gain attention. For you to be given the attention you've craved without having to do anything. It's... strange. You clear your throat. "I was just wondering what you were up to."

Yang raises her eyebrow. She doesn't buy it, and she makes it no secret.

You stand, and she sits. A spell of silence is casted.

Your phone buzzes, and you're grateful for the distraction. You pick it up, and avoid her eyes by walking away, holding your phone to your ear. You feel her gaze never leaving you, even after you've left the house.

/

It's nighttime, and the street is empty.

The hollowness of Patch after the sun has set bores you. You hate the police for issuing a new curfew rule. As if this town needed to be even lamer.

"I heard that the weird kid's been hanging out all by himself," one of your friends say, chuckling to herself as she takes a puff of smoke.

"Dude, which weird kid?" the other asks, dangling her feet front and back as she sits on top of the bench like a true hooligan.

"You know, the one whose mom has, like, cancer or AIDs or something." Ah. Him. "He and this other dweeb's been playing baseball alone together." A small pause. "Or maybe they were playing football. I dunno."

"I mean, so what?" you ask, giving each of them the slitted look you've seen in Yang too many times, making sure to keep them on their toes by inhaling your smoke, your exhale big and airy and loud. "The kid doesn't matter. No one matters here in this hellhole."

No one except Yang. But not even they should know of this. They, who not only know, but take part in your biggest secret.

Your friend snaps her finger. "Exactly! He'll be so easy for us to play around with!"

"Oh, yeah!" the other says, engrossed in the hype. "We could maybe do it in that weird old cabin! You know, the one deep in the forest where there were, like, murders there or something."

"Literally everyone knows which cabin you're talking about, bitch," you say, irritated. You take in their shocked faces and flush, standing on your feet, and rollerblading away.

You extend your arms, in the middle of the street, and look up, expecting the black, star-less and moon-less sky above you to give you answers, or a sort of hint, at least.

They don't understand. Of course they don't. They'll never think of the murders as anything other than a way to have fun. In a way, they're more dangerous than you are. Dangerous, but directionless, and idiots.

You need an outlet. You always need an outlet.

An outlet for Dad's continuous dotting and suffocating presence, hurting you then healing you and giving you the love you've always craved - he never gives you much of that love, only a hint of it, a hint to keep you wanting, to keep you begging, so you keep coming back to her, over and over.

An outlet for Qrow, who knows what's happening, but pretends that he doesn't because just like you, Dad keeps _him_ wanting too. She's ingrained herself so deeply in his heart and mind that he keeps on failing to protect you, his own niece, from him.

An outlet. Any outlet will do.

As you slow down, your breath hitches.

Yang is that outlet, you realise.

/

You don't think you've ever loved anyone.

Your Dad and Qrow are there, but there are too many negative emotions you feel towards them for you to love them the way children ought to love their parents.

The longer Yang stays in your life, the more you wonder if Yang's the only person you love.

You test out that theory one night by using drugs as an excuse to kiss her.

Her breath hitches, and you feel her throat jolting against your hands in an attempt not to make a noise. You keep yourself in-line out of fear. You're afraid that one wrong move may send her back to the big city, leaving you abandoned and alone and in the dark, with Dad breathing down your neck.

You, never gentle, gently push. Her hands twitch as though she wishes to grab your waist or your face to pull you in, to pull you deeper, deepening the kiss.

_C'mon, _you beg her as something hot and wet stings your eyes. _Do it. Do it, Yang. Please. _

And there it is, that hint of a moment, heartbeat of a second, a quarter of a lighting strike, where she kisses back, and God, it's the most wonderful feeling ever.

But it's done before it truly began.

And you're smiling, watching the drugs take over her, making her smile and laugh and dance like never before. You wonder if this is who Yang was before her mother died.

You laugh too. You laugh along with her, but for different reasons. You find it funny that one of her loved ones died, while the other kills people for kicks. One is a saint, the other a demon. Yin and Yang. Good and evil. Peace and destruction. Oh, so many euphemisms, comparisons, analogies.

You almost tell her that, but you catch yourself, and you laugh again. Even as you cry, you laugh.

What a funny world.

/

The dollhouse is immaculate, and pristine, and perfect. No one but you touches it. You've made sure of that.

You answer the knocking of your bedroom door with a muttered _come in _, and you pale at the sight of Yang.

She looks pretty in that white dress.

And she looks dead.

She's smiling at you, and saying something, but you can't hear her words. You're too distracted. By her. By how etherial she looks in that dress of hers. By how much you want to kiss her and kill her.

It's distracting.

She's distracting you.

And she's sitting down next to you, so close to the dollhouse.

You wonder if she can sense it, the aura coming out of your dollhouse, the way you sense it. She's smart, is she not? She'll figure it out. You believe she will. Yang's smarter than anyone you know. If anyone can figure it out, it's her.

It's a morbid kind of faith. One that you put in her.

"You look lovely," she says.

"So do you," you answer, and let the silence stretch on.

She tears her eyes from you to look at the dollhouse. Your breath hitches. She pulls her hand to let it gently hover around each curves and edges, each finger gliding down into the air before making contact with the evidence of the murders.

No one touches the dollhouse but you.

"Ruby, are you mad at me?"

You are. But not for reasons she may think. "What are you talking about?"

"You've been avoiding me."

You have. But not for reasons she may think. "It's just- the play. I'm just worried about it, I guess."

You pose yourself as a perfect little girl to adults, and a cool teenager to teenagers. No one will suspect what you've done. And no one will suspect what you wish to do to your own flesh and blood.

Others may buy the excuse. Yang's too sharp for that. Her face softens, and you wonder why people are adamant on staying away from her because goodness, look at her face!

She touches your shoulder with a gentleness similar to Dad. Only, you don't remember Dad's touches being this electrifying and sending strange heat down your stomach and below.

"I'll figure it out, Rubes," she says, and the strength in her voice makes you believe in her before she explains what she'll figure out. "I'll find the bastards that did this to you, to all of those girls, and I'm going to fix this."

She leans in, and presses her lips on your forehead, and presses them again to the top of your nose, before standing up and leaving.

It takes you a minute for her words to settle in. It takes half of another minute for the shaking to begin. Two minutes of fighting before the tears fall. One before the crying turns ugly. Another before it turns hysterical.

"You're looking at her, Yang," you say. "You're looking at her."

* * *

**So, um, quick confession: This was originally a Sharp Objects fic I posted in Ao3. I planned to do the same here, only to realise that there is no category for either the novel nor the TV show. I was, admittedly, devastated, because it held back my plan of wanting to post each and every one of my stories here in this site for me and the world to see. But then I decided, "Hey! Why not turn it into a RWBY fic! I mean, Yang and Ruby are half-sisters too, and... yeah!" So, boom. Now this exists.**

**I mean, I would apologise for this being not at all like canon, but, like, isn't that kind of what the point of fan fiction is? To create a world beyond canon? I mean, Idk my dudes.**


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